LL-L "Language treatment" 2005.01.22 (01) [E]

[Lowlands-L]

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L O W L A N D S - L * 22.JAN.2005 (01) * ISSN 189-5582 * LCSN 96-4226
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A=Afrikaans Ap=Appalachian B=Brabantish D=Dutch E=English F=Frisian
L=Limburgish LS=Lowlands Saxon (Low German) N=Northumbrian
S=Scots Sh=Shetlandic V=(West)Flemish Z=Zeelandic (Zeêuws)
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From: Mike Morgan <Mike.Morgan at mb3.seikyou.ne.jp>
Subject: LL-L "Orthography" 2005.01.21 (05) [E]

Criostóir an aw Lowlanders,

I agree that to US the hyphen in e-mail serves a USEFUL (Criostóir had
"necessary") function. Not to many years ago I too used to write "e-mail",
but I consciously switched a couple years ago. My motivation was:

1) It's much easier, when jotting off a quick email, NOT to reach all the
way up into the upper right periphery of the keyboard to add one EXTRA
"letter". And it seems appropriate to the medium ... and outside that medium
I rarely use the word (in writing at least).

2) To MOST users of the word, it is probably neither necessary nor useful.

I live in a strange linguistic (and social) environment which has led me to
look at language in new ways. Not only do I live in Japan, which mangles
English on a regular basis (sometimes one suspects, intentionally as an act
of rebellion ... which as a Welsh-Scotch-Irish-American I can applaud), but
more than that I live most of my social existence in a DEAF world.

Japanese uses borrowings or hybrid-borrowings for such words as internet (イ
ンタネット) and email (電子メール),  and the mostly well-educated Japanese
Sign Language (JSL) users (like the Deaf newscasters on the NHK Sign
Language news, or the Japanese National Deaf Association "research" groups
that get together regularly in Tokyo and Kyoto (and also in Hokkaido?) to
make up new signs, that they publish in book-form and promote nation-wide
every couple years) who I imagine see themselves as language promoters tend
to borrow such new vocabulary from (via) Japanese (in the latter case), and
less commonly from American Sign Language (in the former), or make up
altogether new signs, often with at least a bit of influence from the
Japanese written language (in a variant for the latter). And generally
speaking it is an "etymologically" correct process.

But the question of language is: What about the "common man", "Joe Blow on
the street"? MY Deaf friends, who are mostly blue collar workers .. if they
even have a job ... (as opposed to my Deaf colleagues at the Japanese
Association of Sign Linguistics, and the NHK newscasters, etc. who are
decidedly NOT blue-collar workers) neither use nor understand a good deal of
these new "etymologically correct" signs. And when you look at THEIR signs
for "email "(most don't have access to the internet; email is by mobile
phone), they are morphologically much more in harmony with the structure of
JSL. And to them email (and also internet for the those that have it) is ONE
concept, so a mono-morphemic sign is used. NOT the bimorphemic ASL borrowing
"Inter(national)" + "Net(work)" or the polymorphic Japanese borrowing
"Electric" + "ME" + "-" + "RU". (The other neologism for "email" is in
harmony with the structure of JSL, but probably under most analyses is
bimorphemic.)

So for me too, email is one concept, and not a hyphenated one (though I am
aware of the etymology, I do not constantly have it in mind).

(P.S. It was also me that forwarded a question on LL-L a couple months ago
to the SL-LINGUIST ML.)

And as for such abbreviations as "telco", "mindef", "singov", etc., having
grown up in a military environment (which I expect is probably the ultimate
origin of such abbreviations -- or at least the process) I guess I'm (or
used to be) more or less immune. However, when I hear my students use
"pasokon" (パソコン < Personal computer), "pansuto" (パンスト < "panty
stockings" AKA pantyhose), and "baito" (バイト < arbeit!! which all Japanese
assume since it is written in katakana it must be English), I HAVE to
correct them / comment ... some of the time at least (they do it so often,
if I corrected them all the time, I wouldn't be able to teach them anything
else). And so, my final comment is that where Criostóir does

> not think they are "bad English"
> because there is no such thing

I would go one further and say that WHILE there is no such thing as "BAD
English", there IS such a thing as "NOT English".

Mihangel ap Iago ap Morgan
Mike.Morgan at mb3.seikyou.ne.jp
Kobe City University of Foreign Studies
Japan

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From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: Language treatment

Thanks a lot for your insightful and thought-provoking post (above), Mike --
and I do not only say this because you and I seem to be on the same page,
generally speaking.

What you said about word coinage in JSL could very well apply to processes
and conflicts regarding Lowlands (and other) languages that so far have no
standards, where language planning runs foul of "Joe Blow's" attitudes and
where etymological considerations are important to a minority only.

> However, when I hear my students use
> "pasokon" (パソコン < Personal computer), "pansuto" (パンスト < "panty
> stockings" AKA pantyhose), and "baito" (バイト < arbeit!! which all Japanese
> assume since it is written in katakana it must be English), I HAVE to
> correct them / comment ...

My favorite example -- and probably one of the top classics -- is スト _suto_
derived from ストライキ _sutoraiki_ (ストライク _sutoraiku_?) < (workers') strike.

Please say "Hi!" to charming Kobe!

Thanks again!
Reinhard/Ron

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